Did
the politicians in Richmond redo the Gregorian
Calendar? If not, then the tax bill violates the
VA Constitution and the budget is not in balance.

Attorney
General Jerry Kilgore may need some help from Judge
Judy, Judge Brown, Jerry Springer, Dr. Ruth, Dr.
Phil, or he can just try to communicate with Pope
Gregory XIII. Every 20 years or so - 1966,
1986, 2004 - the politicians in Richmond have gotten
around to raising the sales tax, the levy now
scheduled to go to 5 percent on August 1, 2004. But
not since 1752 have we here in the former English
colonies decided to throw out the basic Gregorian
Calendar, and perhaps go back to the Romans. Of
course, this being a taxing issue, it might make
sense to do it the Roman way, as after all, we now
are giving to Caesar what is Caesar's, leaving less
for God.

Adopting a new
Calendar would sure be a gutsy move would it
not?

Indeed, as Barnie Day has pointed out, our
politicians in Richmond do feel they are the
embodiment of "courage," a term best put
in quotes as Mr. Day has pointed out.

So, while a 20-year itch is much ado about
nothing, settling a 252-year score with the
British is big news.

No wonder Prime Minister Tony Blair is turning
against the War in Iraq -- his folks are still
very sensitive about their history and our hand in
it. Indeed, when the General Assembly returns to
Richmond in June to deal with the apparent
constitutional flaw in the tax bill -- more on
that below -- it will be almost 252 years to the
day when Benjamin Franklin did his now famous kite
experiment. This was also the year when the Dutch
forbade the export of windmills, wisely leaving it
to politicians and commentators to supply the wind
on a calm day. Moscow was set afire, and the first
fire insurance policy in the United States was
issued.

For 252 years then, Virginians have regarded our
calendar with benign neglect, with the possible
exception of Daylight Savings Time and the
requirement to pass a budget by the end of a Regular

General
Assembly Session.

We have at least all read the calendar, my
preference being the swim suit edition, not the
Farmer's Almanac. However, seeing the same
months and days every year, no change, no variety,
is, as they say, boooooooring.

So maybe the General Assembly was right to change
the Calendar.

Did they? If so, it seems cruel to make
us learn about such an historic change when we start
paying higher taxes

We will find out, but it will take reading the
Virginia Constitution to know for sure.

Admittedly, few Virginians have had occasion to read
our state Constitution lately. This includes,
apparently, the governor's lawyers, the legal eagles
at the General Assembly, the high-priced lawyers and
political appointees of the Attorney General, all
but Del. Bob Marshall among our state legislators
and possibly Mr. Warner, Mr. Kaine and Mr. Kilgore
himself along with the state's press corps and
editorial boards.

They get paid to read such things: average folks
like you and I do not. This is especially true
of Mr. Kilgore, who says he is the state's top
lawyer.

...all laws enacted at a special session... shall
take effect on the first day of the fourth
month following the month of adjournment of the
special session; unless in the case of an
emergency (which emergency shall be expressed in
the body of the bill) the General Assembly shall
specify an earlier date by a vote of four-fifths
of the members voting in each house... [Emphasis
added].

Granted,
this part of our Constitution was enacted the
"California" way, as Virginians voted it
into law by direct referendum. The fear of somehow
turning Virginia into California - exchanging our 13
electoral votes for their 55 seems like a good deal
to me - does seem to bug a lot of the politicians in
Richmond, and may explain their reluctance to read
the words endorsed by the people they get paid to
represent.

However, I don't take the California bashing very
seriously. For the record, referenda have long been
considered a great reform in American politics,
aimed at giving power to the average people against
the undue influence of concentrations of great
wealth, the railroads specifically in terms of
California Gov. Hiram Johnson's legislation. The
last time a native Virginian was elected President,
the Democratic Party endorsed popular referenda in
our platform.

But today, what passes for the Virginia
intelligentsia is against them, as was Senator Harry
Byrd and his machine, afraid giving Virginians such
a right - God forbid -- that might allow people to
end segregation, give African-Americans and women
the right to vote, and other such dangerous notions.
I used a variant of this right last year to give the
people of Richmond - admittedly, I was called a
racist -- the right to elect their own Mayor.

Still, reasonable men and women can disagree on the
value of referenda, so that is a subject for another
day.

However, what we do need to decide today is whether
the General Assembly did more than pass a record tax
increase: Did they create a new month between July
and August?

The reason for such an inquiry is self-evident as
will now be explained. As indicated above, the
effective date of the sales and cigarette tax
increases, among other things, is the "fourth
month following the month" the Special Session
of the General Assembly finally adjourned. This
happened earlier this month of May. Thus, new taxes
are constitutionally prohibited from taking effect
before September 1, 2004 unless the emergency
provisions of Section 13 were met.

Unfortunately, the tax bill passed by the General
Assembly makes them effective August 1, 2004. Since
the emergency provisions were not met, the August 1,
2004 date is prohibited. Should the state try to
impose, for example, the higher sales tax on that
date, the Retail Merchant's Association, an ad hoc
group of vendors, a single vendor, a group of
customers or perhaps single customer, could bring
suit to block the higher tax rate. The Virginia
Supreme Court is not a big fan of such taxpayer
suits as demonstrated in the case of Goldman vs
Lansidle. But the justices did allow a trucking
association to bring a suit challenging some
statewide regulations and they would almost surely
have to allow someone or some group to question an
illegal tax.

Any other result would hold the judicial system up
to ridicule.

Accordingly, the state budget passed by the General
Assembly allocates revenues in a manner not
permitted by law, meaning the state budget has an
outlawed deficit.

In practical terms, the state budget allocates
roughly one extra month of revenues from certain new
or expanded net revenue sources. Subtracting this
amount will those cause the current budget to be out
of balance by normal accounting standards.

Accordingly, the Governor either has to get the
General Assembly to restore this revenue by enacting
an emergency clause to the tax bill, or cut certain
line items in the budget to balance state spending
at a lower level.

Unless some legislators in the House of Delegates
have had a change of heart, it seems doubtful there
would be sufficient numbers of lawmakers willing to
allow an emergency clause to be enacted.

Accordingly, as originally suggested by Delegate Bob
Marshall, it would seem the August 1, 2004 effective
date for any such new or expanded revenue measures
may be in serious doubt.

Unless, of course, the General Assembly and the
Governor are about to announce a change in the
Gregorian Calendar.

-- May 24, 2004

Paul
Goldman, the Rebel With a Cause, was chief
political strategist for the past two winning
Democratic governors in Virginia and was credited
with leading a "revolution in American
politics" by The New York Times for his role
in breaking America's 300-year-old color barrier
in national politics.